Debate over election reform triggers centre-left resignation

(By Sandra Cordon)
(ANSA) - Rome, January 21 - Controversy continued on Tuesday
over a proposed new election law presented by Democratic Party
(PD) chief Matteo Renzi, the result of a deal struck last
weekend with ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi.

While critics in the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement
(M5S) said the proposal was worse than election laws from former
fascist prime minister Benito Mussolini, the new president of
the PD Gianni Cuperlo abruptly resigned, saying he felt
"alarmed" at the direction of his party.

In a letter published on his Facebook page, Cuperlo - who
was defeated in December by Renzi for the top position as party
secretary - suggested he felt muzzled.

Cuperlo had been particularly critical of the proposed new
election law, which the PD approved Monday despite some
reservations within the party, especially over Renzi's
collaboration with Berlusconi.

Some parts of the PD complained that such a deal serves as
a form of political rehabilitation for the Forza Italia chief
Berlusconi, who was ejected from parliament after a definitive
tax-fraud conviction last year.
"I resign because I am shocked and alarmed by a
...(political) party that cannot bend its uniformity of language
and thought," Cuperlo wrote in his letter, addressed to Renzi.

Renzi, the ambitious 39-year-old mayor of Florence, had
told his party that his proposals were "concrete," and not open
to amendment.
"It's a complicated castle that only stands up if all the
pieces are together," Renzi said Monday.

"If someone intervened in parliament to change something,
it would wreck everything".
On Tuesday, members of the M5S complained Renzi's proposal
"is worse than the electoral law of the Duce (Mussolini)" and
adding that that was "the forerunner of Renzi's (plan)".

Mussolini's so-called "acerbo law," passed in November
1923, was designed to give his party the majority of deputies in
parliament.

Cuperlo had expressed his concern at Monday's meeting that
Renzi's proposals could not be amended, adding they did not
guarantee adequate representation and some feared they were not
Constitutional.
In his letter Tuesday, he elaborated on his frustration.

"I resign because I want what is good for the Democratic
Party and want to commit to strengthen its internal ideas and
the values of the left," which Cuperlo suggested are being
"redesigned" to the detriment of the left.

"I resign because I will always have the freedom to say
what I think. I want to be able to applaud, criticize, disagree,
without it appearing to anyone as an abuse".
After the letter became public, Renzi said he regretted the
loss of Cuperlo and his contribution to the PD.

"I respect your choice," Renzi said to his former
leadership rival.

"I thought, and still think, that your personal commitment
to the community would have been very good".

But Renzi maintained that the proposals could not be opened
to amendment.

Italy needs a new election system to replace the old one
that was recently declared invalid by the Constitutional Court.

The political parties failed for years to find an agreement
on a new system, even though the old one, which was nicknamed
the 'pigsty' and was blamed for contributing to the inconclusive
outcome to last year's general election, was widely recognized
to be dysfunctional.

That election result led to two months of deadlock and then
the swearing-in of the weak left-right coalition government of
Renzi's PD colleague, Premier Enrico Letta.

Renzi said his proposed system, based on proportional
representation, would feature a significant bonus for the
coalition that comes first to ensure it can govern.

A coalition that comes first and obtains at least 35% of
the votes would get a bonus that would grant it between 53% and
55% of the seats in parliament, with the maximum bonus being
18%.

He said that if no coalition obtains 35% or more of the
vote, his proposal is for a second round of voting between the
top two alliances.

Voters would not have the opportunity to express
preferences for the candidates who they want to represent them
on a party list.

A big problem with Italy's former election law was that the
system of long 'blocked lists' of candidates gave voters little
power in selecting representatives.

This, and the former win-bonus system, were among the
reasons that the old law was ruled invalid by the Constitutional
Court last month.

Renzi reportedly wants to get around the detachment this
creates between elector and elected with smaller constituencies
and lists of just four or five candidates so voters can have a
better idea of who the potential MPs are in their area.

He added that his proposal is for a threshold of 8% of the
vote for a party to have seats in parliament to prevent the
system being too fragmented.

The threshold would be lower, 5%, for parties in a
coalition.

The small parties in Letta's government alliance,
threatened by the thresholds to entry to parliament, have not
ruled out the proposals.

Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Angelino Alfano, the
leader of the New Centre Right, has said they would be
acceptable if certain of his demands were accepted, particularly
on the question of voter preferences.